10:12PM PDT: A’s win! Bailey locks it down, A’s hang on (against all odds it seemed at times). Brandon McCarthy gets a very much deserved and earned win. He has been great this year with little to show in the win column. Texas wins in Seattle, A’s position in the standings remain unchanged.

“#Athletics have received calls on Andrew Bailey. Current position is that they would need to be overwhelmed.”

10:03PM PDT: Hideki Matsui drives in Josh Willingham on third. Big sequence of plays there. Willingham gets a double off Kohn, then the wild pitch which gets Ryan Sweeney (pinch-hitting for Willingham) to third, makes it easy for Matsui to cash him in. A’s get the insurance run and lead 5-3.

9:58PM PDT: Michael Kohn comes in with one out in the eighth for the Angels. Kohn has to have one of the most miserable pitching lines in baseball. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this this year. He has pitched a grand total of nine and a third innings spread across eleven outings. Despite this limited time he has been worth -0.5 WAR. Wow! 7.36 FIP doesn’t help anyone. Kohn’s biggest problem is the 2.9 HR/9 – yikes.

9:55PM PDT: CSNCalifornia is reporting that Devine left with a back spasm. If this means he keeps off the 15-day disabled list, it will be interesting to see how Bob Melvin manages the bullpen in tomorrow’s doubleheader.

9:48PM PDT: Grant Balfour is into the game as pitcher number six. Not entirely sure how I feel about the move, but I guess Breslow will be good to go regardless having thrown just a third of an inning. I guess this is just the textbook it is the 8th inning, Balfour is your eighth inning guy move.

9:45PM PDT: Pretty pathetic caught stealing – as that missed call on the Jackson run really looms large – by Pennington there. New Angels catcher Hank Conger threw it right on the money. Still not really an excuse, Pennington is a miserable 6-for-13 this year on steal attempts (46.2%) which is absolutely completely unequivocally unacceptable.

9:41PM PDT: Well so much for the previous thought as the A’s finally prompt Mike Scioscia to feel that he has seen enough. He gets one out in the first before allowing a hit to Cliff Pennington and opting to have Hisanori Takahashi come in to keep the Halos close. Takahashi has been serviceable with an average 3.62 ERA and 3.82 FIP.

9:36PM PDT: Dan Haren is out to pitch the seventh inning. This is key because this really could determine the rest of this series. With the doubleheader tomorrow, the A’s have blown through five pitchers already tonight, whereas Haren still being out there means the Angels will have a decently rested pen. This does not bode well for the Athletics having a successful weekend.

9:31PM PDT: Willingham misses a catch on a catchable ball giving Abreu a double and ending the night for Ziegler. Craig Breslow is now due in to face the switch-hitting Callaspo.

9:16PM PDT: A batter later than we wanted but Ziggy gets the inning ending GIDP from Aybar. A’s hold on for now… bullpen is going to be in rough shape to play two tomorrow.

9:15PM PDT: Trout with a base hit to left field – gets his first MLB RBI – everyone moves up one base. Angels narrow it to 4-3.

9:13PM PDT: Brad Ziegler will come in with a slate of right-handed hitters due up (same strategy employed when Devine was put in to begin with). He gets a crappy situation coming into a 3-1 count with the bases loaded. Doesn’t get much worse than that does it? Well there always is the 3-0 count with bases loaded. An inning ending GIDP is what the A’s need here…

9:11PM PDT: That quickly goes from bad to worse. Devine has a 3-1 count on Mike Trout, grabs his side, coming out of the game. Not good.

9:06PM PDT: Four-pitch walk to Izturis making it three straight walks for Wuertz and allowing one of his McCarthy inherited runners score. Joey Devine gets to work out of a bases loaded mess now. It tightens to: A’s 4, Angels 2.

9:04PM PDT: Wuertz comes in and walks two straight. Not the showcase we were hoping for here. Bases are now loaded, one is out. Maicer Izturis is pinch-hitting for the weak hitting Mathis. Good point Ray Fosse made about this being why Los Angeles keeps three catchers, I guess when you have one who is as anemic with the stick as is Mathis it helps to have pinch-hitting options. Still don’t get Scioscia’s love affair with Mathis though, because while defense is important, it isn’t keep a 48 wRC+ hitter on your roster important.

8:57PM PDT: Base hit to Alberto Callaspo will end McCarthy’s 110-pitch night. He goes just 5 1/3, gets killed by the high pitch count which in part was because he managed a tied for a season high (April 15th versus Detroit) seven K’s. While he is responsible for Callaspo on first, he has thus far at least just allowed one run (earned) on six hits while walking just one. As I’ve said McCarthy is a sore luck loser owning a 1-5 record, so hopefully the A’s can hold on and get him win number two – which is much deserved since he was the A’s best first half pitcher at 2.1 WAR. Michael Wuertz comes into the game, he is a trade candidate too so the better he can pitch the better it is for the A’s possibly picking up some players to help out beyond 2011.

8:55PM PDT: Seventh K of the night as he gets Bobby Abreu. Third straight for McCarthy. I’ll say it again, great pickup, really like him a lot.

8:45PM PDT: Weeks needs some help on the basepaths. He steals second but slides way too late, and this headfirst stuff sliding in so late is going to do nothing but result in broken fingers. Then he goes for third needlessly and is thrown out. You have the heart of your order due up, you are fast, you can score from second on a single.

8:40PM PDT: Not an easy task but faced the with the second and third one out situation, McCarthy battens down to K Howie Kendrick and Torii Hunter. McCarthy has had terrible luck all year but in reality in many ways has been the A’s best pitcher – great, great, great under the radar pickup for Billy Beane, really excited to have him back in 2012 especially in light of Brett Anderson and Dallas Braden being very questionable for a good chunk of the year if not all.

8:35PM PDT: Aybar doubles to right-center and it scores Russell Branyan from third so the Angels are on the board and with just one out still have guys on second and third. Athletics 4, Angels 1.

8:30PM PDT: Jeff Mathis gets the luckiest single of his career. Mathis, who probably is the worst hitter of my lifetime, current owner of a .195/.241/.286 slash line (which are slightly off the pace of his .199/.262/.308 career mark) hits the ball all of 30-40 feet down the left field line and it just spins oddly into an infield single. Brandon McCarthy, poor guy gets victimized by this nonsense all the time. This is why we all need to fall in love with defense independent pitching statistics.

8:22PM PDT: Wow. Missed call. Suzuki singles, Conor Jackson scores in everyone’s book except the home plate umps. He rolls over Mathis, clearly plants his entire forearm elbow to wrist across home plate, is called out. Garbage call. Should be 5-0. What a terrible call in a season chalk full of them. Credit Mathis for going to tag Jackson after the play to get the out, but it really should’ve been a moot point because Jackson was as safe as safe can be.

8:20PM PDT: CoJax with an opposite field single that scores DeJesus. Jeff Mathis, who is Mike Scioscia‘s favorite player as well all know, really had a nice defensive set up there to effectively block of DeJesus. Though he dropped the good cut off throw from Aybar, DeJesus had nowhere to go and only via the drop was he able to score. 4-0 Athletics.

8:14PM PDT: David DeJesus looking good in right field to end the top of the fourth stealing a double from Mark Trumbo. I still feel that DeJesus is someone to keep around. He has had a miserable season and I just can’t believe his productive years are done. This year is an anomaly – no way he doesn’t bounceback next year. Lock him up buying low.

8:04PM PDT: Second deck shot for Josh Willingham! LONG GONE. Two run shot widens the Athletics lead to 3-0. I wonder if any scouts sitting at the Coliseum today took note of that? Glen Kuiper says that that was one of the longest home runs he has seen hit at the Coliseum – interesting.

7:59PM PDT: Jemile Weeks is the one guy we can count on on this club to make things happen. Single up the middle, scores Zuk from third and gives the A’s a 1-0 lead. Nice hitting from Jemile.

7:55PM PDT: Great leadoff double by Kurt Suzuki down the left field line into the corner. A’s really need to take advantage here with the bottom of their order and score some runs of a pitcher where runs are at a premium.

7:42PM PDT: Twenty-one strikes for both starters through two, mind you two additional balls from McCarthy giving him a 33 pitch pitch-count to Haren’s 31. These pitchers line up well, both won’t give up the long ball or walk many guys, should be a relatively quick game. It’d be nice to see the A’s get to Haren, they’re 2-for-2 against the Halos when Haren had started.

7:10PM PDT: McCarthy leaps for the Erick Aybar chopper towards the mound and it glances off his glove out of the reach of Jemile Weeks. The poor luck he has is just unreal. It is a hit and will look like a line drive in the box score tomorrow.

7:02PM PDT: Dan Haren was a key omission from the American League All-Star roster but his not participating in the festivities in Phoenix means he is able to make the first start of the second half for the Halos. He sports a great 2.61 ERA, with an even better 2.54 FIP assisted by a strong 7.7 K/9 and great 1.3 BB/9 with an impressive 0.5 HR/9. Great numbers, for a great pitcher. Brandon McCarthy, the A’s best player in the first half takes the hill for Oakland. He hasn’t K’d too many guys (5.4 K/9) but has featured pinpoint control (1.4 BB/9) and hasn’t allowed many long balls at all (0.4 HR/9). For the A’s lineup, the big change is the swap in the three and four slots, with Josh Willingham hitting third and Hideki Matsui hitting clean up. Scott Sizemore hits in the five hole, with Conor Jackson manning first base for the Athletics tonight. Big note on the Angels side of the ledger is that this will be our first glance at vaunted prospect Mike Trout who hits ninth. Trout is 1-for-9 in his short MLB career, with a walk and a strikeout. There was one big and somewhat surprising roster move today that I at least did not see coming at all – Eric Sogard returns to the Athletics, fresh off his selection to the 2011 Triple-A All Star Game in Salt Lake City and Chris Carter has been demoted back to Sacramento. During is tenure with the A’s Carter had a terrible .133/.189/.133 slash line in 32 plate appearances with fourteen strikeouts. He looked lost and his demotion will hopefully serve both him and the A’s well.

Willingham is a horse. I hadn’t realized he was available last year until the trade deadline was passed, but he is just the kind of player you want to stockpile: he gets on base and he hits for BIG power.

I don’t know how much we will be helping you guys out, we haven’t looked so hot lately.

I like Willingham. Don’t think I want the A’s to resign him just because of the injury concerns and the cost, coupled with his getting to the end of his prime and the fact he likely will want a 3 or 4 year deal I am guessing.

He certainly has the power though, and has had some big hits for us this year.